AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“They were at Angela and Scott’s party.” Maggie’s hovering behind me, waiting to start the machine with her app. “They seem great.”
Straightening my spine, I move aside so Maggie can do her thing. I was going to sneak the sheets into the wash while she showered, but she caught me out when I grabbed the towels we used to clean up.
“I hope they didn’t ambush you? They have a tendency to do that.”
Maggie laughs. “They did, actually. They caught me as I snuck a bite to eat and made me choke.” She leads me out of the facility and back to her apartment, recounting her meeting with my ex and her wife. “Shelby is fucking intimidating. No wonder you felt a need to compete with her.”
“Who would have thought that me competing with a Southern belle for my daughter’s attention would lead to me being so good at baking?” I sweep Maggie against my chest to kiss her soundly, before giving her a gentle push toward her couch. “Coffee?”
“Always.” Maggie hesitates before she sits, watching me at her coffee maker. “Pods are in the drawer. I know working at Sunshine Cellars wasn’t your dream, but you’re very good at it.”
“Not according to Nate.” I figure out how to insert the Nespresso pod and start Maggie’s mug. “No. I originally wanted to be a doctor. But the idea of med school was intimidating. And then when we were teenagers, Nate broke his wrist in a baseball game and I went with them to the emergency room. There was this nurse there… He was so confident even the doctors were deferring to him. That’s when I decided to go to nursing school instead.”
I add cream and sugar to Maggie’s coffee and carry it over. The noise she makes as she buries her nose in the frothy surface makes my dick twitch hopefully, but we’re both too sore this morning for any vigorous exercise.
“Was event planning always your dream?” I force myself to walk back to the kitchen to make my own coffee, counting backwards in my head to stop my semi from turning into a full hard-on.
Maggie turns, arms leaning over the back of the couch so she can watch me. “Yeah. When I was a kid, I was always throwing parties. Birthday parties, end-of-semester parties, dance team parties, you name it.” She laughs, and the sound settles deep in my soul. That’s what happiness sounds like. “Once, I tried to throw a surprise birthday party for my older sister, Daisy, but she knew I was planning something and refused to come home. She thought it was a party for one of my friends and wouldn’t believe anyone when we said it was her friends that were at the house waiting for her.”
I finish adding milk to my coffee and take it to her couch. “Between you and Shelby, Olive’s birthday parties are about to become legendary.” I set my mug down and take Maggie’s, setting it beside mine. I pull her between my legs so her back is resting against my chest, then hand her back the mug.
She twists to look back at me. “Running the winery isn’t your dream, and nursing is too painful. What do you want to do?”
Maggie’s question takes me by surprise. “I…I don’t know.”
“Really?” She sips her coffee, allowing me a moment of silence to digest the thought.
“I don’t know the last time I thought about what I want. It feels like ever since the moment I found out June was pregnant, I’ve done what I had to do to take care of the people I love.” The realization knocks the wind out of me almost as directly as Nate’s punch to my diaphragm.
Once I saw those two pink lines, everything in my life had become focused on making sure I could provide a good life for June and our baby. And then the pandemic had been a series of endless days and nights just trying to make it through to the other side.
I hadn’t even been the one who realized that I needed to walk away from nursing. June had to point out that I was having panic attacks every time I was about to leave for my shift. In my mind, I had to keep taking care of people. Because if I didn’t, who would?
Even now, helping Greg run Sunshine was because without Nate here, who else would?
Maggie sits up to put her mug down, before twisting around to face me. “Maybe you should start thinking about it. You don’t have to decide right away—I assume they’ll need you at Sunshine until Greg recovers. But maybe you should let him, or Mr. Sutton, know that they should start looking for an alternative person to take over for you. I guess you should tell Nate, too.” She scrunches her face in distaste. “I have to admit, I don’t particularly like him, but I assume he knows what he’s doing.”
I pull her up the length of my body to plant a kiss between her eyebrows. “I hate that you have such a bad first impression of Nate—but he has no one to blame but himself. He’s always been stubborn and a little abrasive, but ever since Greg and Jackie sold Sunshine, he’s been getting worse and worse.”
Maggie rests her head against my chest, her head tucked under my chin. “Well, even if he doesn’t want to admit it—Sunshine Cellars is his problem to solve. Not yours.”
Part of me wants to argue, to say that’s not true. I grew up there almost as much as Nate did. I’ve put my blood and sweat into the ground with each year he’s been gone. More than a few tears, too. In the early months after Sutton hired me, I spent more than a few mornings in tears—reeling from the separation and overwhelmed by being a single dad while recovering from serious burnout.
Working the land, with only the sounds of nature and the open sky above me, had healed the parts of my soul that the hospital and June had ripped to shreds.
“You’re right. Logically, I know it’s not my problem to solve. Sutton pays me a generous salary, but at the end of the day it’s his winery. It’s Nate’s legacy. My name will never be on a bottle.”
Maggie strokes a hand over my chest, and I swear I can feel her smile. “Kel, anyone who talks to you for ten minutes knows how much you love that place. Just because you don’t want to stay there forever doesn’t make you love it any less. You’ve made your mark on it. That will never go away. But you have a chance now to do something that’s just for you. That’s about taking care of your own needs. Don’t you want that?”
I sigh. “I’m honestly not sure I know how.”
Maggie chuckles. “How about you start by letting me take care of you? I’ll teach you.”
Tipping her chin up, I kiss her lips. “Deal. But only if you promise to ask me for help when you need it. You don’t have to do everything on your own, you know. I’m here to help.”
“Will you help me with all my baking disasters?” Maggie grins, a mischievous twinkle in her eye.
“For your events or at home?”
